Alameda City Council okays license plate readers

Alameda police will soon be equipped with license plate readers that can scan and store thousands of license plate numbers that can be automatically checked against lists of stolen cars and wanted criminal suspects and saved for future use in criminal investigations.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to allow the police department to spend up to $80,000 to purchase four of the license plate readers from Livermore-based Vigilant Solutions. Police Chief Paul Rolleri said the readers should be operational by the end of this summer.

Council members dismissed concerns expressed by some residents and privacy advocates who said they think collecting the information violates the privacy of people who have done nothing wrong and who have expressed concerns about it being misused. They said the license plate and location data the systems will collect is already effectively public since the cars it will track are on public streets and that they feel the department is putting adequate safeguards in place to insure proper use of that data.